Podcast Episode:
Are black people hard on each other? Are expectations too high? Is society forcing us to hold onto the stereotypes? Stay tuned as we discuss Black Love, Black Relationships & Black Issues … on this edition of Frank Relationships.
FRANK RELATIONSHIPS: THE ZO WHAT MORNING SHOW
Guests: Zo Williams
Dates: November 25, 2013
Frank: Are black people hard on each other? Are our expectations of each other too high? Is society forcing us to hold on to stereotypes? Well, stay tuned as we discuss black love, black relationships, black issues and a few other matters on this edition of Frank Relationships
Welcome to Frank Relationships where we provide a candid, fresh and frank look into relationships with goals of respect, acceptance and flexibility. I’m Frank Love and you can find me, my blog and my various social media incarnations at franklove.com. You can also download the podcast of this and other archive shows on iTunes or your favorite podcast app.
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Now, today’s guest is a talk show personality in his own right. On his show he and his panel of co-hosts decode various complexities of modern day relationships.
The show is the Zo What Morning Show and his mission is to improve relationships within the urban demographic, by increasing effective communication, provide audiences with truly original content that inspires, educates and entertains and facilitate an inventive and unprecedented engagement between the information seekers and the newsbearer.
In addition of being a host, he’s also the author of, The Rebirth of Seeds, a collection of poems, commentaries and terms written to give his children a better outlook on life. The effort is to uplift and the man behind the effort is, Zo Williams. Welcome to the show.
Zo: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Frank: How are you doing?
Zo: I’m alive and well. I’m up early. Good thing I’m already an early bird, so it wasn’t too much of a struggle to get up, but I’m glad to be here with you.
Frank: We’re coming to you. I’m on the east coast. I’m on the true east coast and he’s on the true west coast, so we’ve got a three hour difference and that’s 8:30 A.M. for me. So, yeah.
Zo: Yeah.
Frank: I appreciate you.
Zo: Thank you, brother.
Frank: The book–tell me a little bit about the book.
Zo: The book–it’s a funny story. Old school rapper Kool Moe Dee inspired me to actually write a book, but that was the book that came out. He was like, “I didn’t want you to write this book. I want you to write–” It’s pretty funny. He was disappointed of the type of book that I wrote, but he’s one of my best friends and he inspired me to just put all my thoughts and ideas down.
He said, “You should just do a book,” but he didn’t tell me what type and I wrote that book and it was poetry. There was social prose and then I created a glossary of terms in the back of the book to explain how I constructed some of those thoughts. But it was a very personal book. If you want to get to know who I am as a person, that would be the book to get.
Frank: I have a great deal of respect for brother Mohandas Dewese.
Zo: Yeah, that’s my guy.
Frank: He’s not just an old school rapper, he is a talented old school rapper.
Zo: Yeah, they have no idea that he’s bigger than his rap persona.
Frank: I believe it. I really, really do and I don’t know him, clearly, like you do. What was the book that you think he wanted you to write and what was the contrast?
Zo: Again, I told him, I said, “Listen man, I’m not really a writer. I write based on inspiration,” and the inspiration that hit me was to go inside myself and take the reader on an introspective journey of my process. I think what he wanted was a book centered on the social game rules that we play, whether they be religious, whether they be cultural. He wanted me to do that type of book in relationship to relationship.
Just dismantle all of the stereotypes and social game rules that we interface with, because I have that kind of information. So, I think he wanted that kind of book and when got a book with poems in it, he was like, “Ahh.” The has book done well since its release in 200–I think it was in 2005 that it came out.
Frank: Wow, okay. On the market for awhile.
Zo: Yeah.
Frank: Which came first, your show or the book?
Zo: The book came first and then after the book, I did a couple of appearances on a television show that was airing on TV One called, “Black Men Revealed” and from “Black Men Revealed” came the opportunity to join Jamie Foxx on his Sirius XM satellite network called, “The Foxx Hole.”
Frank: Okay.
Zo: And after doing a show there called, “Speedy’s Comedy Corner,” which was a comedic round table, I was the only guy that wasn’t a comedian. I was the voice of reason and that was the role I played and my role was so significant on that show that they decided to give me my own show called, “The Voice of Reason.”
Then, that show stayed at number one on the “Foxx Hole” for the next four and a half years. The number one show on the network in terms of caller participation, audience. The audience was only second to, of course Jamie Foxx, but a very popular show.
Frank: And let’s here about the current incarnation of the show.
Zo: The Zo What Morning Show–that show right there is an experiment. I call it my anthropological, social experiment. I have a comedian: brother Jeff Brown. He’s been in the comedy game for many, many years. He’s from Chicago. Then, I have a 65 year old Jewish doctor. He is an international best selling author. His name is Dr. Mark Goulston. He’s a psychiatrist. He’s also a medical doctor and he’s a very, very deep insightful cat. Then, of course, you have me. I consider myself the philosopher, the comedian and the doctor and that creates the Zo What kind of experiment. We cover relationships. We cover all the topics people don’t necessarily want to talk about. We go in pretty tough.
Frank: Does one come to mind?
Zo: What’s interesting is we have a segment build in the show called, “The Ignorant White Questions” and we allow Doctor Mark Goulston to ask black people a question that only black people can answer from the black experience. But the question is being asked from the white prospective. A question like, he asks once, “Why is it that black people who spend the most money, yet seem to be destitute in America in terms of businesses and being able to keep that money within their own communities–why do you guys stand in line at the mall, waiting for the new Jordan’s?”
Frank: Or video game.
Zo: “Why do guys kill each other over the shoes?” So, it’s a very tough question that as black people we have to be called to the carpet on?
Frank: Right.
Zo: And to be called to the carpet from the 65 year old white man is pretty interesting.
Frank: Yeah. It could be a challenge, I imagine.
Zo: Yeah, the ignorant white question of the day.
Frank: Now, in the studio, the man who works the boards, the talented Jeff Newman, he is a 50 year old white guy.
Jeff: And extremely ignorant.
Frank: So, he might have a question right now.
Jeff: I have 17 of them, but I won’t deal with chicken and big butts. I won’t go there.
Frank: And watermelon and collard greens?
Jeff: No, I didn’t go there. I understand the attraction to chicken and big butts, so that’s an ignorant question.
Frank: Okay.
Zo: A universal attraction.
Jeff: But I did hear something the other day and it was a euphemism, I guess, I had not heard in African American vernacular. I happen to be wearing cologne and the brother said, “You got your Brute working.” Do black folks realize that there are more colognes than just Brute?
Zo: Oh now, come on.
Jeff: But that is a slang–I know but I hadn’t heard that before. That’s a new one.
Frank: Yeah, that takes us back–
Jeff: You got your Brute working.
Frank: A significant period in time. My grandfather used to wear Brute. This was 30 years ago. He passed in ’84.
Jeff: There you go.
Zo: Brute might be before my time.
Jeff: Here’s a very ignorant one. When a white person is down and not fronting, but to generally cool and cool with black folks, it’s a compliment to them to be accepted into that culture. Whether it’s in a reggae band or hanging out on the basketball court or what have you. When a black person is accepted into a white community circle, black folks view that as–and this is the question–do black folks view that as a negative? You’ve heard the Oreo and the Uncle Tom and all of that.
So, maybe I’m getting a little deep here, but it’s a compliment to me when I’m down with the brothers. Is it that much of a compliment to you when you’re in the board room wearing a starch white shirt?
Zo: Wow, that’s a great one and I really love the angle here. The thing with black America, and a lot of people can call in and disagree, but I’m just going to throw it out there under the bus right now. We deal with a lot of double standards in our community, a lot of double standards. We get to say the “n” word, but no one else can, but then when we get called to the floor, because the “n” word is a negative word, in general, we’ll say, “No, we’ve turned it into a word of endearment.” Right? The same thing applies to your question, there is a double standard. But I will say this regarding that double standard, the white guy who comes over to us and is accepted by us is in a space of appreciating a culture that was born from the lack of one.
We’re in America and we figure out how to be cool. We figure out how to create jazz music, we figure out how to create ragtime, we figure out how to create hip hop. So, we created a culture, because we didn’t have one, because we were bereft of one. One was ripped away from us as we were brought over here.
Now, integrating the other way, is part of the social game rules for freeing slaves. “What are we going to do with the four million slaves that we freed? They’re not well educated. We’re going to have to pay them to work for us now and we don’t want them to vote,” so from that point on, they started to contextualize a social game rule for how those black men and women would now be accepted among white society. It’s a very difficult thing to do if you start to look at black people wanting to be accepted by what is generally seen as an oppressive system.
So, when we see a black guy cross over, we go, “Oh, he only did it for the money. He only did it for the approval,” and I don’t think black people can truly interact with white people until we start to value and approve of ourselves.
A lot of times, I make this an example on my show often. I say, “Imagine what the Negro baseball league would be worse today, had we never sold it. Had Jackie Robinson never went–” and like I say with black people, what we tend to do is, is strive to reach plateaus that were set up for us, but not by us.
Jeff: It would resemble the MBA.
Zo: But it would be ours. The thing about it, if Barry Bonds, Ricky Henderson, Reggie Jackson all of the greats stayed with the Negro League and we kept ownership of it–but what I’m trying to say is, with black people, we spend most of our time integrating into a system that created a space for us to be acceptable to them, as opposed to creating our own way and being acceptable to ourselves. So, now you can see the dichotomy in, okay, black people feeling a certain kind of way when some of us make it across and are accepted among those who initially suppressed us. And then said, “Well, the only way we will accept you is, if we can have you in this kind of package.” Do you understand what I mean?
Jeff: I do. So, can I ask a follow-up ignorant question?
Zo: Sure, sure.
Jeff: With what you just said, do you or do many within your community, still feel oppressed or still blame, “the white man” or “society” on failure or lack of success?
Zo: Here’s the thing. It’s hard not to feel oppressed when you don’t understand the hidden hand. Like for instance, there’s research done out of Stanford University right now on stereotype threat. The stereotype threat is simple. When we look at the Standardized testing across America at all levels of academia, whether its middle school, high school, advanced education in terms of–it doesn’t even matter, Ivy League, if it’s [Z One] 17:32, NCAA, there is a stereotype threat that is embedded in the Standardized testing that keeps an educational gap of four years in between white students and all other minorities–or anyone who is within the stereotyped threat target.
What that means is, if there are some stereotypes in a test, the people who are affected, or a group of people that are affected by the stereotype, tend to do poorly. When you take all of the stereotypes out of the testing, now what? The minority people or the blacks or the browns or the Asians, the yellows, whatever, tend to score at the same level as their Caucasian counterparts or higher or better.
Again, it’s hard to say, “Oh no, there’s no conspiracy,” when you look at resumes. “Oh, this person’s name sounds back. I’m not calling them back.” Or, “This person’s name sounds white, I will call them back.” Or you look at the judicial system–
Frank: What do you have, what do you have to say about the part where the Asians, meaning the Oriental Asians seem to exceed the Caucasians on the Standardized tests?
Zo: Oh, it’s beautiful, because what happens is, it becomes involved in GPA, so now the Asians focus in on Math and Science. Now, they’re saying, now the people who put together these tests, are saying, “Okay, it shouldn’t just be about the GPA.” Now, it wouldn’t have been a problem had the Asians not done so well. Now that the Asians are doing so well, they’re like, “Okay, now we have to change that standard too.”
At the end of the day, it’s not necessarily a blaming situation, it is the template of how we interface with the social game rules and that template is, ages, racism, sexism and classism. That’s how our society filters all of its laws and it’s done that way to create a hierarchy. It’s unfortunate, but again, there is a huge mistrust in the African American community as it pertains to local law enforcement. We don’t even want to talk about the disparity in sentencing, whether it be crack cocaine verses powdered cocaine.
Frank: Did you see that video of the woman in New Mexico?
Zo: No, I did not, sir.
Frank: I was watching this just last night. There’s a woman in New Mexico that was pulled over. She was driving a minivan–a black woman, a 39 year old black woman was driving on a highway. She was going 71 miles an hour in a 55–driving on the highway, had her five children in the minivan. Was pulled over once. She stopped and then she pulled away before the cop could give her a ticket. The cop pulled her over a second time and then he he pulled he pulled her out of the vehicle and then he started pushing her around.
The oldest son–still a young man, got out of the car to try to break it up. It ended up being a big scuffle–not a big scuffle, but it ended up getting out of hand. The woman put all of her kids back into the car and then pulled off again. When she was about to pull off, they started hitting the windshield with the night stick and as she pulled off onto the highway, one of the cops began to shoot.
The commentator that I was listening to as I was watching this video was saying, “A police officer cannot shoot at a vehicle that’s pulling away,” particularly when the worse offense was clear that was made was a misdemeanor. It was wild to check it out.
When I was watching this, I was sitting there talking to a buddy of mine and I said to him, I said, “Police corruption is so real, because you never, ever and I have never heard of this–I have never heard of a police officer pulling out his firearm, shooting at a citizen and another police officer pulling out their firearm and shooting that police officer when he knew that other officer was dead wrong.” I’ve never heard of it. It’s never happened.
If you really think about what, “is said to be” the cultural of the police or what should be protect and serve, there has had to be a time when a police officer saw his partner or another officer doing something blatantly wrong and life-changing or deadly where it would have been the thing to do if he was protecting and serving, to actually shoot that cop.
Zo: Well, you do know that there’s a code within the police. They’re like a fraternity.
Frank: Absolutely.
Zo: They will cover for each other–
Frank: Yep.
Zo: They will support each other. But to go back to my point that your engineer asked, I think what we need to keep in mind is as black people, is that a lot of the issues and problems that we face, would at once go away or at least clarify themselves even more, if we had any level of solidarity.
A lot of black people are screaming about Obama and “Obama should help black people” and I think what they fail to realize is Obama is a President, who a sitting President who has responsibilities that far exceed just the issues and problems of black people. With that said, even if Obama wanted to help us, you can only help someone who is ready to receive your help.
I’m called to think of this old saying, “Opportunity and success are at an intersection.” A lot of times preparation and opportunity come together and equal success. For us, we have to be prepared to meet the opportunity when it presents itself, collectively and I don’t think collectively as black people we’re prepared to even be helped yet.
What if he came to us and said, “Okay, what do you guys want to do?” Well, there’s too much enmity between black relationships in terms of male and female that how could we pull it together in order to receive the help, if he decided to offer it? We have a lot of work to do and a lot of it, I think a lot of healing has to take place in order for us to be able to rise to a respectable level in the world.
Frank: What are some of the male-female issues that you’ve addressed or that you find most compelling to talk about in the black community?
Zo: Wow, you sure? Pandora’s Box? Right now?
Frank: I’m–
Zo: This early.
Frank: Hey, you don’t know who you’re talking to.
Zo: Wow, okay. Again, I think some of the big issues, if you look at it right now, 65 percent of all African American children spend some portion of their lives not living with their father. Seventy-two percent of all African American children are born out of wedlock.
Now, what I’m not going to do is say, marriage is the answer, because a lot of people want to hear that marriage is the answer. But if marriage is the answer and marriage has a 50 percent of divorce rate in the second year of marriage, then that’s telling you the construct of marriage has a flaw in it too. Most people are doing it for the wrong reasons. Most people don’t understand what it is. They don’t understand that it’s more business than it is intimacy and love.
Frank: Hold it, right there. Wait a second. Alright, talk about that business. What’s the business side? I got a major thought around written agreements. When you’re in a relationship or before you get into a relationship where you could end up in court. It’s highly likely you could end up in court such as before you have children or before you get married. Where do you weigh-in on the business side? Let’s hear it.
Zo: That’s what happens when you are from a capitalist society. Everything about a capitalist society revolves around money, revolves around business. Even your relationship concepts come from economists. You’ve heard people say things like–men and women, “Well, if I make a certain amount, they have to make at least that much or more.”
Frank: I’ve also heard when you’re talking about supporting a child, we’re talking about dollars and cents, nine times out of 10.
Zo: Exactly. They’re not talking about the other currency like, presence. Women don’t understand–and I can’t just blame women, men too, but people don’t understand simply that a father’s presence is an invaluable currency to a developing child. It’s invaluable. Not to say that mom isn’t invaluable, but 98 percent of all custodial parents are women. With that said, you start to see a lot of issues developing in a child’s life, because of the absence of that father.
It’s very important that we understand. Like I was saying about, economists creating relationship construct. There’s a construct called, Equity Theory. What I bring, you must bring equally. That was created by an economist. So now, you understand the effect of a capitalist society on, listen to this, what is supposed to be a spiritual institution.
Most people think relationships are about pleasure and support and all those old things are components. The reality of it is, relationship is a spiritual classroom where the reflections or the feedback you get from your partner is what you have to work on yourself. That’s your curriculum.
Frank: That is exceptionally real, but I don’t want it just to be said that relationships are in terms of romantic relationships. All relationships are that.
Zo: Absolutely, but when you get to different levels of intimacy, as Dr. John Gray would say, the intimacy, playing on words, means the ability to “see into me,” that requires vulnerability. What we’re in pursuit of is what is the one thing that is the most difficult thing to obtain or achieve and that is trust and trust is based on you not changing. We’re asking people not to change when change is the most dominant factor in life.
Frank: Talk to me about trust, because I’ve got my own spill on trust.
Zo: If it says, “I can trust you,” that means you won’t change, you can be reliable. I can open up to you without fear of harm. The sad fact is the people we love the most tend to hurt us the most. They tend to hurt us more than anyone else. Why? Because I cannot hurt you in one moment of consciousness and then in another moment of unconsciousness hurt you. That’s just the nature of things.
Frank: That is absolutely the nature of things, yes.
Zo: We have a totally fantasized unrealistic view of our interactions with one another. We live in a capitalist society. We have capitalistic concepts of how relationships should operate. Then, at the same time we have old archaic out dated beliefs where–
Frank: Give me one.
Zo: For instance, the man is automatically the head of the household, because God said so.
Frank: Okay.
Zo: Well, this is where women are starting to find, “I need something more from you than what God asked you to give to me and that’s protection and provision.”
Women are now being able to provide for themselves. Women control 65 percent of the world’s assets. There’s 15 trillion dollars annually passed in hand. Women control 10 trillion dollars. Women make up the majority of the workforce, so you providing for her is now is starting to be inconsequential. What other currency can you provide to her that will tell her that you’re a great catch, other than your job?
Frank: When I’m asked about relationships and what is the purpose of a romantic relationship in particular. My answer is, the purpose is whatever the two people in the relationship say the purpose is.
Zo: True.
Frank: You got anything on that?
Zo: I do. When you say whatever they say it is, now we’re talking about agreements–
Frank: Absolutely.
Zo: And concepts and here’s the weakness in that. Most people have never challenged what they thought to be true, their beliefs. Most people are not dating a real person, they’re dating an idea. Now the idea has it’s own in-built expectations and when those expectations aren’t met, you label the relationship as failed, broken, unfulfilling and unsatisfying. But what you fell to realize is, maybe it was the idea that you associated to the person that failed you, but you’ll never know that, if you never test it, if you never challenge it. You can’t challenge it by way of someone’s behavior. Again, there’s a concept for that too. It’s called confirmation bias and what that is, the confirmation bias is, “I’m only looking for what I think is true and when your behavior is in alignment in what I think is true, I have a confirmation.”
But I always tell women, behavior is man’s most effective way to lie. We don’t lie with words, because we’re not good liars and women can tell when we’re lying. So, we try not to speak too much. What we try to do is use our behavior to convey our communiqué. But here’s the weakness in that, I tell women, behavior speaks louder than words, but it doesn’t speak louder than our intention. You have to connect to our intent for why we’re doing the thing
Frank: Alright, so talk about lying, because under what you just said, there’s a conversation worth having about lying. I’m going to tell you my position and it’s people lie because they’re not comfortable telling you the truth and that’s really it. If you really want the truth, be quiet and let a person reveal themselves on their own time, in their own manner and you will get the truth and trust what they tell you.
Zo: Right.
Frank: You don’t need to talk about it, once you know. Once you see it, you don’t need to talk about it to get talked out of it. You could just simply trust what it is you’re learning about them. What do you have to say about lying?
Zo: Again, trust and truth are on the polar opposite ends of the thing. If you got to trust something, you’re not connected to the truth, because the truth is self-evident. It needs no explanation. It needs no faith. Truth doesn’t need any faith. You know what it is. That’s why it’s the truth. When it comes to lying, lying is a human evolutionary part of its condition. Lying protects. Everyone lies. It’s serious.
Frank: Right.
Zo: It’s part of what it is, what it means to be a human being. Most people will lie to protect themselves. That’s it. I’m not telling you this, because I don’t know who you’re going to react, so I’m going to protect myself by concealing the truth from you. A lot of lies will manifest themselves in many different ways. Omission is a big lie. Even politeness. We teach children to be polite.
Frank: Sensitivity can be a lie.
Zo: Yeah, absolutely. For instance, when my children were really, really young we’d go visit–
Frank: How many you got?
Zo: I have three.
Frank: Okay.
Zo: When my children were really young, we would go visit my mother, while she was sick and when my mother got sick, she couldn’t clean her house. We would go visit my mother and the kids would be very–just they didn’t have a filter. We’re going to stay outside in the car. Grandma’s house stinks. We’re not going in, just tell her we said, “Hi.” We had to check, “Hey, that’s not how you interface. You don’t say that. You be polite. If you’re going to say anything, just go give her a hug, say, ‘How are you doing,’ and then come back to the car. You don’t have to tell her that her house stinks or it smells.”
In a way, politeness will tell you to swallow the truth, because right now the truth would probably hurt more than it could help. Lying is just a part of humanity, it’s a part of who we are and if there’s anybody listening to the show, who doesn’t agree with me, follow and track yourself and track me the amount of lies you tell everyday.
Frank: That’s a dangerous game a lot of people are not willing to play.
Zo: Yes. Yeah, pretentiousness is lying. We’ll label pretentiousness or we’ll file it under politeness, but really, it’s lying too. But like I said truth and trust–and this is why I keep telling you the only thing that is real in relationships is the feedback that you’re getting from your partner. There’s a science out called, NLP, neural linguistic programming.
Frank: I’m familiar with it.
Zo: And what they say is, “The feedback that you get is information,” and if the information, or the feedback that you’re getting from your partner is negative, that means you lack rapport.
It’s just an information loop that’s saying, “Hey, I need to find another way to communicate what I’m trying to say. The way I’m communicating isn’t getting through to this person and it’s letting me know, via their push back, their negative feedback that I don’t have enough rapport to connect with this person.”
Frank: “And this is a learning opportunity for me.”
Zo: And this is a learning experience.
Frank: Yep.
Zo: But most people are very childish, regardless of their age and what they want is what they want when they want it. Unfortunately, the University of You, which I call relationships, doesn’t work that way.
Frank: You’re listening to Frank Relationships and we’re talking with the host of the, Zo What Morning Show. He’s also the author of, The Rebirth of Seeds, Zo Williams. Zo, how can our listeners find you and your show?
Zo: Go to rmconair.com. That’s if you want to see the live showing, which is every Tuesday, 10:30 A.M. Pacific Standard Time and we go from 10:30 A.M. to 12:30 P.M. west coast time, Pacific Standard Time. It’s an incredible show. Next week’s show is going to be so heated. The topic is called, “The Rise of the Radical Himinist Movement.” I laugh at myself with these crazy topics. But what we’re starting to find out is that there are a lot of himinists and I got the idea from a “Married with Children.” You remember how Al Bundy had the No Ma’am Club.
Frank: Oh, yeah.
Zo: Yeah.
Frank: You mean I’m talking to a fellow “Married with Children” fan?
Zo: Absolutely.
Frank: Do you go all the way back to the first season?
Zo: Absolutely, one of my favorite shows.
Frank: Wonderful. I’ve got to pause you, because, one–I have said this on the show in the past, but one of the nuggets of wisdom that the prophet, Al Bundy gave us.
Zo: The prophet Al Bundy.
Frank: The prophet Al Bundy–he was talking to his son Bud one day who was on his way to college, I believe it was, and he said, “Son, watch out for the big draws, because girls with big draws have big things under their draws.” That was so ignorant and funny, that it has stayed with me over the course of many, many years. Alright, but I digress. Go on, back to what you were saying.
Zoo: I was also saying, you can contact me or connect with me on my website iamzowilliams.com and of course I have a YouTube page, where you can see about 30, 40 episodes of the Zo What Show. The YouTube page is called, “thezowhatshow.”
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You know, you start off your show often with the discussion around a book. I understand that you’re an advent reader. Is that right?
Zo: Yes, brother, yes.
Frank: Give me a book. Give me a good book or two and tell me about them.
Zo: I’ve read over, I think, I’m closing in on 4,000 books right now. I think I read about maybe, two and a half, maybe three books a week. I try to do that just to stay abreast of topics and concepts and ideas. I want to just be well versed on a few things. But one of my favorite books and I always recommend it, it’s a book called, Education and the Significance of Life, by one of my favorite philosophers. His name is Jay Krishnamurti. It’s an incredible book that talks about like I mentioned earlier about dating ideas as opposed to dating the real person.
Once you get your ideas out of the way, you will find yourself in a position to meet the person you thought you loved for the very first time, because you see them as they are, not as you want them to be. You see them without the filter of your idea of what they are. Even the name we associate, “This is my boyfriend.” It doesn’t matter who your boyfriend is, they come and go. The concept of what you think a boyfriend is, is who you’re trying to fit that person to.
Frank: This guy fit’s in this box here.
Zo: Exactly and so–
Frank: And with that you’re also telling the listener, “Keep an eye on him, because he’s my boyfriend, you know how he should be acting.”
Zo: How he should be acting.
Frank: Yep.
Zo: And again, you never really interact with the real person. You interact with the expectations that are associated with the idea and this is why so many people are disappointed and let down, because they somehow think that a static idea that has never been challenged will take in a sentient being who’s always growing and he’s going to be and fit right into that perfectly.
Frank: And the listener is not really interacting with that relationship either, between the boyfriend, girlfriend, because they’re basically being fed a cookie cutter shot of what that relationship is, what their agreements are, what the culture of it is, all of that good stuff or bad stuff. However you see it.
Zo: Most clinicians, sociologists and people who are in the relationship field on an academic side will tell you, the most highly functioning relationships are the ones that exceedingly pliable and flexible belief.
The more concretize your beliefs, you raise the propensity for conflict. You raise the propensity for disappointment, because the moment someone does not perform or produce the expectation that is associated with the idea, now you’re not happy. People just don’t work that way.
Another book I suggest, if it’s okay.
Frank: Absolutely.
Zo: Quincy Jones told me to get this book, very powerful book. I will say this, if you don’t like real wordy guys, you might not want to get this book, but to me it was an incredible, it was a revelation. It’s a book called, Power Verses Force, by Doctor David R. Hawkins.
Frank: That’s a mouthful right there. I talk about that so often. In my book, How to Gracefully Exit a Relationship, I discuss concepts related to that. My concept of relationships, power is heavily rooted in flexibility, which is not force, so many of us consider power to be force and making something happen, I consider–and there is a concept that is powerful at times. But there’s another part of powerful and powerful can also be, being flexible and adjusting your mind set and adjusting–
Zo: Absolutely.
Frank: The way you see a scenario, so that you don’t have to use force, you can actually adjust your own perspective or how you’re in that scenario.
Zo: Absolutely. It’s the difference between demand verses command. If you’re demanding something you don’t have it. If you’re commanding it, it comes to you by way of what you are, without effort. It’s really that simple.
Frank: Very nice. What are your thoughts on the education, education as a landscape in the black community? Do we consistently see those that are educated as weak? Is there a healthy respect for education?
Zo: This is what I think. The same thing applies to marriage that applies to education. This is why I say get the book, Education and the Significance of Life. First of all, education is an institution and so is marriage. If a man goes to jail for 20 years and he comes out finally after 20 years of incarceration, they say that man is “institutionalized.”
Culture institutionalizes us too. Marriage institutionalizes us, education institutionalizes us and what we must remember about education in America is, at the end of the day it has nothing to do with self-knowledge and the flowering of that. It has more to do with the integration into an economy, which is why people say, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Frank: I love it.
Zo: Okay, “We’re going to put you on this path so you can become that.” People fail to realize, education in America is about integration into an economy.
Frank: Exactly.
Zo: Most of these people are made by what they do. Hi, my name is John and I’m a doctor, not I’m John who practices medicine, one of the many things that I do–
Frank: Right.
Zo: But I am identified by my job–
Frank: One of the things that I–
Zo: And it economizes–go ahead.
Frank: One of the things that I truly believe is, when we’re talking about education, generally speaking, in this society, we’re talking about assimilation.
Zo: Absolutely, absolutely. This is one of the things that I love about the book, Education and the Significance of Life, Krishnamurti speaks on teaching and he basically said, “Any person that is in front of the pupil that hasn’t resolved their own internal issues is a danger to the student.” Most people; we just go through the motions.
If you look at these children nowadays, they’ve mastered the cliff note. They have all of the educational resources and tools available: iPhones, iPads, internet. They can get the information and they can organize themselves in a much more succinct way than we were able to do pre-internet.
What it does is, it shows them a pattern of how to get through the classes. There are so many students that are going along to get along just so they can get their degree, but when they graduate, are totally lost as it pertains to who they are.
Frank: Yes, students that turn into adults.
Zo: Right, that’s what I’m saying. The magnitude of their being is still undiscovered once they walk across the stage and get their degree and that’s where education has failed us.
Frank: I’m going to tell you about a conversation I had with my wife just yesterday and I’d like for you to weigh-in on it. Tell me your thoughts. She was telling me about an old friend of hers. Her name is Judy and Judy had a husband that was promiscuous, shall we say, and they had been together for many years and she knew he was promiscuous and she kind of just turned a blind eye.
She loved her husband and loved the idea of being married and stayed in the marriage until at some point they found out–there had been a few pregnancy scares along the way, and they eventually discussed or she confirmed that he had a three year old that was not by her. They did have children. She and her husband did have children together. My wife was saying, how devastating–she was saying that Judy was now happy and she split from her husband at some point and then she’s now happy. My wife was saying how devastating that experience had been to Judy and how most women would not want to be Judy or not want to be in a scenario like that.
I said to her, “There are a few ways to not be in a scenario like that.” One way is, imagine if Judy have been accepting of her husband and just taken the position of, “This is my husband. He’s interested or likes to have sex with multiple women, and I know this about him and I’m going to just accept who he is and he’s good to me. Clearly I like being in a relationship at some level.”
Clearly she did like being in a relationship at some level, because she was in it up until the point where she left. I was telling my wife that, that’s a way to not be in the Judy scenario, for her to or for anyone–any woman to look at the scenario differently. To except him and it goes for men and women too. I’m not pointing fingers just about women looking at men. It could be men looking at women also.
I went further to say also–my wife said that she had had many conversations with Judy and she was telling Judy, “Why do you stay with him? You’re stupid. That’s dumb.” I said to my wife, “You are also a potential part of the problem. It’s possible you’re part of the problem.” Number one–
Zo: By saying that, yeah.
Frank: Yeah. “You’re telling Judy basically a few things, you’re telling her that she, if she is happy, she can’t communicate it to you, because you’re telling her she’s stupid for staying in the relationship. Or if she wants to stay in the relationship, you’re telling her that she can’t communicate it to you, because you’re telling her she shouldn’t want that.”
Zo: Let’s see it from this angle really quickly. To say, let’s take your wife’s argument. “You should leave the relationship, because you aren’t happy, and your unhappiness is associated to this brother’s behavior that he’s bringing back to the relationship.” Another book you should get, The Kybalion, by the Three Initiates. Incredible book.
All truths are half truths, what your wife says is a half truth. The part of you going out and cheating, that’s you. “You made a commitment brother, you fell off your commitment.”
Frank: If he made a commitment.
Zo: Right.
Frank: If he made a commitment.
Zo: If he’s married to her, he made a commitment.
Frank: Well, we don’t know what that commitment was. Some people may very well say, “Hey, I’m not agreeing to monogamy. We can get married, but I’m not agreeing to monogamy.”
Zo: Right, so we don’t know the internal details of that, but if we could assume and generalize that the basic marriage in America, it’s probably a Christian marriage, then you made a commitment to not cheat on this woman. That simple and if you did that, that’s on you. That’s your karma. You’re responsible for that.
Now the half truth in what she’s saying and this, you’re telling her that her whole happiness boat is tied to this man–
Frank: Yes.
Zo: That is what breaks relationships down in the first place. Happiness is an internal movement and if you’re not happy just because, something that emanating from the inside of you outward and now its tethered to this guy, you set yourself up for failure. In relationships, I’m telling you, most people have unworkable ideas when walking into it. They think it’s a safe haven from all of the hurt they’ve experience. They don’t understand it is a warehouse of hurt that’s dying to be exposed.
Frank: If you want to get hurt, get in a relationship.
Zo: Get in a relationship.
Frank: Right. Get in an honest relationship.
Zo: That’s what it’s for.
Frank: Get in an honest experimental relationship where the two of you are generally interested in figuring “it” out, whatever “it” is.
Zo: Figuring you out, is the university of you. Even Carl Young said it before. He said, “The subconscious is all of your fears and all of your unresolved issues dying to manifest itself or resolve itself through conflict in relationships.”
Here’s a metaphor, Satan the term means “adversary.” From “adversary” we get the word, “adversity.” Now, what is a life lived devoid of adversity? It’s not a life lived at all. Adversity is like a spiritual personal trainer and so is conflict. It’s trying to work itself out. That’s why you’re in a relationship. Like I said, we’re in a capitalist society. We emphasize the money and the accomplishments over you actually enrolling into the university of you, where the curriculum that is the feedback is what you’re there for.
Frank: Very nice, very nice. You’re listening to Frank Relationships and we’re talking with the host of the Zo What Morning Show. He’s also the author of, The Rebirth of Seeds. The man is Zo Williams. Zo, how can our listeners find you and your show?
Zo: Man, rmconair.com, on Tuesday’s, 10:30 A.M. Pacific Standard Time to 12:30 P.M. Again, you can go on youtube. I think rmc has a YouTube page. Rmconair and type it in. One word, “rmconair” and you should be able to catch up with past episodes as well.
Frank: Along today’s journey, we’ve discussed the equity theory, relationships and economics and power verses force. I hope you’ve had as much fun as I’ve had discussing an array of issues with Zo.
As always, it’s my wish for you to walk away from this conversation with a heaping helping of useful information that’ll help you create a relationship that’s as loving and accepting as possible. Let us know what you thought of today’s show at facebook.com/relationshipflove, on Twitter @mrfranklove or at franklove.com. On behalf of my producer, Phileta Legette, my assistant producer, Anayza Stewart and the man on the boards, Jeff Newman. Keep rising. This is Frank Love.
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